My grandma Sara Jane preferred to be called Sally. She always brought cold celery sticks in glass gars of water to our house for every gathering. She said she was allergic to garlic until one day in her oldest years she declared her enduring love for garlic. She was a […]

Holidays. The two sided coin of family joy and pain all wrapped up in one wild package of food, memories and (dys)function. Combine all the normal chaos of the holidays, add together a generous splash of high expectations and a side of nostalgia and you can bake up a piping […]

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” If I could count high enough, I would know how often she has said this in the last three weeks. She is restless and pacing. She throws on shorts to walk the dogs, grumbling that there is no snow. She checks the weather, willing the […]

His young cheeks are rosy from his internal furnace, his feet are bare, he’s nearly vibrating with energy. Every day, our son sits down to school in front of the Advent calendar. He makes sure his sisters have done their due diligence. From December 1 til Christmas, they take turns […]